Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 5

[smcder]

I'm thinking of starting a blog or some other kind of "workspace" site in order to put relevant links, documents or whatever is possible so we can refer to that one spot for many things. Google docs maybe plus a blog? I think I can do that for free -

I don't know my way around the cyber world, so any suggestions appreciated.

For example I found a good paper this morning by Ned Block, 2009, outlining theories of consciousness and if I just link it here - it's hard to find and out of sight out of mind ... if we're going to the blog/site whatever from time to time, I can organize these and keep them in mind and make them easy to find ...

?

 

[Randall]

What's relevant in that extract is how shockingly little he knows about post-Freudian psychology.

I wouldn't presume based on how little I know about Ramachandran just how little or much he knows, other that as a Distinguished Professor with the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego, he probably knows more about it than you and I put together.

Some of his friends and colleagues must have whispered that to him, but yet he clings to it as a model. That would be because he's never read (hasn't even heard of) the variety of modern schools of thought in psychology, which were founded in reaction to the reductiveness of Behaviorism. The man is too narrowly educated, a typical outcome of scientific overspecialization.

If one is going to be "overly educated" ( not really sure how that happens ), maybe it's best that one isn't overly educated in the outmoded, archaic, and obsolete, none of which include neuroscience.

 

[smcder]

This is the kind of reference paper I'd like to put out on a blog/site, it's by Ned Block and gives a comparison of theories of consciousness:

https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/Theories_of_Consciousness.pdf

I'd also like to have a table of theories and the commitments/consistencies of each, for example that physicalist theories are reductive ... etc

abstract This article compares the three frameworks for theories
of consciousness that are taken most seriously by neuroscientists:
the view that consciousness is a biological state of the brain, the
global workspace perspective, and an account in terms of higher
order states. The comparison features the “explanatory gap” (Nagel,
1974; Levine, 1983), the fact that we have no idea why the neural
basis of an experience is the neural basis of that experience rather
than another experience or no experience at all. It is argued that
the biological framework handles the explanatory gap better than
do the global workspace or higher order views. The article does
not discuss quantum theories or “panpsychist” accounts according
to which consciousness is a feature of the smallest particles of inorganic
matter (Chalmers, 1996; Rosenberg, 2004). Nor does it
discuss the “representationist” proposals (Tye, 2000; Byrne, 2001a)
that are popular among philosophers but not neuroscientists.

 

[Constance]

I wouldn't presume based on how little I know about Ramachandran just how little or much he knows, other that as a Distinguished Professor with the Psychology Department and Neurosciences Program at the University of California, San Diego, he probably knows more about it than you and I put together.

What's the referent of your pronoun 'it'? No doubt he knows a great deal about neuroscience. What I tried to point out is that if neuroscience and behaviorism represent the entirety of his intellectual capital, he has no grounds on which to make sweeping and uninformed statements about a discipline [in this case psychology] that he hasn't followed. The objectionable statement was this:

"For most of the twentieth century, all we had to offer in the way of explaining human behavior was two theoretical edifices—Freudianism and behaviorism — both of which would be dramatically eclipsed in the 1980s and 1990s, when neuroscience finally managed to advance beyond the Bronze Age."

As if nothing contributing to our understanding of human mentality has been written since Freud and Skinner. And as if only neuroscience can illuminate the complexity of consciousness, human experience, and mind.

If one is going to be "overly educated" ( not really sure how that happens ), maybe it's best that one isn't overly educated in the outmoded, archaic, and obsolete, none of which include neuroscience.

What disciplines are you referring to here?

 

[Constance]

This is the kind of reference paper I'd like to put out on a blog/site, it's by Ned Block and gives a comparison of theories of consciousness:

https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/Theories_of_Consciousness.pdf

I'd also like to have a table of theories and the commitments/consistencies of each, for example that physicalist theories are reductive ... etc

abstract This article compares the three frameworks for theories
of consciousness that are taken most seriously by neuroscientists:
the view that consciousness is a biological state of the brain, the
global workspace perspective, and an account in terms of higher
order states. The comparison features the “explanatory gap” (Nagel,
1974; Levine, 1983), the fact that we have no idea why the neural
basis of an experience is the neural basis of that experience rather
than another experience or no experience at all. It is argued that
the biological framework handles the explanatory gap better than
do the global workspace or higher order views. The article does
not discuss quantum theories or “panpsychist” accounts according
to which consciousness is a feature of the smallest particles of inorganic
matter (Chalmers, 1996; Rosenberg, 2004). Nor does it
discuss the “representationist” proposals (Tye, 2000; Byrne, 2001a)
that are popular among philosophers but not neuroscientists.

Looks to be very helpful. Thanks for the link.

 

[smcder]

Looks to be very helpful. Thanks for the link.

You are welcome. I am envisioning something like a chart or flow chart that helps us identify the positions arguments for and against et cetera so that we can kind of start finding way around.

 

[Constance]

Being No One
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0465020690/?tag=rockoids-20

I read a generous sample from that book at amazon and have ordered a copy. Thanks for the reference.

What do you all think? And how is it that I am supposed to trust the answers given by a living conception feeding back on itself ("self" here is very very tenuous ...because its the only "object" that exists that can comprehend the "feeling" of its own misunderstandings) that is the "world existingly?"

Hmm. I'll try to rephrase what you've written to see if it corresponds to what you're saying there. Are you saying that a living human being is 'a living conception feeding back on itself'? And do you mean by this that 'consciousness' is no more than a false conception of the nature of the being that becomes conscious and moves consciously through the world? I take it that 'the world existingly' is a phrase from a phenomenological philosopher, perhaps Heidegger? I wouldn't say that consciousness exhausts the world and I don't think Heidegger intended to say that, if that's how you're reading the phrase. How do you interpret that phrase? You also ask how you are "supposed to trust" this consciousness that, in your view, is essentially a conception feeding back on itself? If I understood better what you are claiming about consciousness and the grounds for that view, I might agree that you shouldn't trust your consciousness. I'm very interested in getting a better understanding of your view of consciousness.

When you arrive at the end of the proof that--step by step--unveils consciousness then you cannot be conscious (consciousness requires a lacuna)...

If you're interested in laying out the steps of that proof I'd like very much to read it and I think others here would as well. If you don't want to do that perhaps you have a link to a source where you, or someone else, presents this argument?

but when you are mystified by it you feel an understanding "exists" which is just out of reach...

More and more interesting, as is this:

synthesize these two perspectives (only consciousness can HAVE a perspective, and perspective requires a lack ) and you have a concept that moves like the focal point of your recursive face in two mirrors facing each others...each time you move to see the vanishing point your own head blocks the way.

That's intriguing and I'd like to understand whether {and if so, why} you think the partiality of human perspectives on the world constitutes an unacceptable or unendurable condition. What you write -- that "only consciousness can HAVE a perspective, and perspective requires a lack" -- sounds like a position similar to Sartre's thinking except that Sartre would likely not have denied the reality of consciousness even after hearing your step-wise proofs that we are not conscious. But we need to hear them, at least I do, if you are willing to express them.

Thanks for your post.

 

[Randall]

This is the kind of reference paper I'd like to put out on a blog/site, it's by Ned Block and gives a comparison of theories of consciousness:
https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/Theories_of_Consciousness.pdf
I'd also like to have a table of theories and the commitments/consistencies of each, for example that physicalist theories are reductive ... etc

Good paper and great project idea, at least on the surface. What would be its purpose?

 

[smcder]

I read a generous sample from that book at amazon and have ordered a copy. Thanks for the reference.



Hmm. I'll try to rephrase what you've written to see if it corresponds to what you're saying there. Are you saying that a living human being is 'a living conception feeding back on itself'? And do you mean by this that 'consciousness' is no more than a false conception of the nature of the being that becomes conscious and moves consciously through the world? I take it that 'the world existingly' is a phrase from a phenomenological philosopher, perhaps Heidegger? I wouldn't say that consciousness exhausts the world and I don't think Heidegger intended to say that, if that's how you're reading the phrase. How do you interpret that phrase? You also ask how you are "supposed to trust" this consciousness that, in your view, is essentially a conception feeding back on itself? If I understood better what you are claiming about consciousness and the grounds for that view, I might agree that you shouldn't trust your consciousness. I'm very interested in getting a better understanding of your view of consciousness.



If you're interested in laying out the steps of that proof I'd like very much to read it and I think others here would as well. If you don't want to do that perhaps you have a link to a source where you, or someone else, presents this argument?



More and more interesting, as is this:



That's intriguing and I'd like to understand whether {and if so, why} you think the partiality of human perspectives on the world constitutes an unacceptable or unendurable condition. What you write -- that "only consciousness can HAVE a perspective, and perspective requires a lack" -- sounds like a position similar to Sartre's thinking except that Sartre would likely not have denied the reality of consciousness even after hearing your step-wise proofs that we are not conscious. But we need to hear them, at least I do, if you are willing to express them.

Thanks for your post.

I would like to hear them as well.

 

[smcder]

Good paper and great project idea, at least on the surface. What would be its purpose?

I think so too. I have a wordpress account ... Ill see what i can do with that.

Ill see if i can make the name as close to C&P as possible.

I can link to @Pharoahs site and to yours too.

 

[Michael Allen]

Edit: I have not addressed all your points yet - this is a quick response. Working on other answers

Hmm. I'll try to rephrase what you've written to see if it corresponds to what you're saying there. Are you saying that a living human being is 'a living conception feeding back on itself'? And do you mean by this that 'consciousness' is no more than a false conception of the nature of the being that becomes conscious and moves consciously through the world? I take it that 'the world existingly' is a phrase from a phenomenological philosopher, perhaps Heidegger? I wouldn't say that consciousness exhausts the world and I don't think Heidegger intended to say that, if that's how you're reading the phrase. How do you interpret that phrase? You also ask how you are "supposed to trust" this consciousness that, in your view, is essentially a conception feeding back on itself? If I understood better what you are claiming about consciousness and the grounds for that view, I might agree that you shouldn't trust your consciousness. I'm very interested in getting a better understanding of your view of consciousness.

I interpret the phrase as precisely as it is said "Dasein is its world existingly" -- its a formal designation meant to be filled out by articulating the references of tools, equipment, environment threads which are like the veins of Dasein's embedding in a world.

Well I should definitely add a clarification that I do not consider 'consciousness' as an entity and perhaps even to consider it a "false conception of the nature of being" may be saying too much. The ontological basis for consciousness consists of primitives that allow a relationship framework to build itself into a "world." That basis itself cannot be formulated in terms of a substance that assumes what it already is trying to show.

The "Dasein is its world existingly" --> William Blatner Heidegger's Temporal Idealism

This excerpt is definitely worth reading (I think Hubert Dreyfus indicated in one of his lectures that Blatner probably understood Heidegger better than Heidegger)
Heidegger's Temporal Idealism

If you're interested in laying out the steps of that proof I'd like very much to read it and I think others here would as well. If you don't want to do that perhaps you have a link to a source where you, or someone else, presents this argument?

My point was that a proof--I do not know its contents--showing or unveiling consciousness to the understanding might require the annihilation of both. So you have two "proofs" one showing consciousness as a comprehensible entity to its own understanding and one showing that such a proof would require destroying the entire package. I like to think these things out fresh from scratch and see how far I get--but my suspicion is someone's already done this exercise.

More and more interesting, as is this:
That's intriguing and I'd like to understand whether {and if so, why} you think the partiality of human perspectives on the world constitutes an unacceptable or unendurable condition. What you write -- that "only consciousness can HAVE a perspective, and perspective requires a lack" -- sounds like a position similar to Sartre's thinking except that Sartre would likely not have denied the reality of consciousness even after hearing your step-wise proofs that we are not conscious. But we need to hear them, at least I do, if you are willing to express them.

I wouldn't say we aren't conscious, but that consciousness is not an entity or substance? The proof I am considering is one that unveils "consciousness" as an entity to the understanding...well this may be analogous to mistaking a still photo of a moving physical object in an environment in place of the actual world physics engine.

Thanks for your post.

And thank you for answering

 

[Michael Allen]

Blatner seems to indicate that Heidegger was unclear on whether a world depended on dasein or vice versa. This may be repeating the same old chicken-egg problem of a working dasein in a vacuum (deworlded dasein is often framed as "consciousness" and put aside as an entity rather than leaving it as is in its necessary relations & connections to an environment with tools, objectives, methods, goals, etc.) Our language likes to set limits and bounds on entities based on these relations. Something like seems to be the target of Metzinger's thesis regarding the phenomenal self-model.

"The brain, specifically the brainstem and hypothalamus, processes this information into representational content, namely linguistic reflections. The PSM then uses this representational content to attribute phenomenal states to our perceived objects and ourselves. We are thus what Metzinger calls naïve realists, who believe we are perceiving reality directly when in actuality we are only perceiving representations of reality. The data structures and transport mechanisms of the data are “transparent” so that we can introspect on our representations of perceptions, but cannot introspect on the data or mechanisms themselves." (Self-model theory of subjectivity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Now to address the issues you raised in this comment:

(Constance) I'll try to rephrase what you've written to see if it corresponds to what you're saying there. Are you saying that a living human being is 'a living conception feeding back on itself'? And do you mean by this that 'consciousness' is no more than a false conception of the nature of the being that becomes conscious and moves consciously through the world? I take it that 'the world existingly' is a phrase from a phenomenological philosopher, perhaps Heidegger? I wouldn't say that consciousness exhausts the world and I don't think Heidegger intended to say that, if that's how you're reading the phrase. How do you interpret that phrase? You also ask how you are "supposed to trust" this consciousness that, in your view, is essentially a conception feeding back on itself? If I understood better what you are claiming about consciousness and the grounds for that view, I might agree that you shouldn't trust your consciousness. I'm very interested in getting a better understanding of your view of consciousness.

If we take the reality engine of our PSM (Metzinger) which shows how a mechanism embedded in a world can also embed a model of itself in a "world" within itself and now consider the model of a world with itself in that model of the world considering its own conceptions of how the entire transaction occurred--its a mess to work out because we are dealing with our understanding of the visible relations lying within the domain of our neurological infrastructure and trying to work out first and third order perspectives. With the third order perspective, we break things up and habitually "deworld" them (stare at them and divorce them from the relational totality which preceded their formation) reversing the necessary transparency layer of the object (i.e. you don't "notice" what works -- working tools and environment lay in the background of phenomenal experience as a basis and become "noticed" when something in the relational totality linking "in order to's" become twisted or broken--Dasien giving mention to these relations now "sees" what was transparent and tries to find meaning in a broken chain)
So to be clear our conception of our own "consciousness" requires the engines and infrastructure primitives of our own understanding, if those primitives and their relations emerge our own understanding to denote "consciousness," as a term for the entire process, then what can we do but laugh at our own attempt to reverse engineer a process (and its relations to other things, processes) as though it was a self-sufficient entity? Thus when the PSM breaks down we end up with a similar issue: the brain attempts to dissect and disassemble its own structures leading to some of the pathologies and aberrations (altered states) cited by Metzinger.

If Heidegger is to be taken seriously, the phrase "dasein is its world existingly" doesn't denote any foundationalism of "world" dependent on "dasein" or vice versa--if true then perhaps the only way to solve the chicken-egg issue is to use an evolutionary or natural selection model to help us determine precedence--which is a funny way of saying that the problem doesn't really exist, or only existed due to human elementalism habits.

So in short, by the time we get to our own idea of consciousness, the transparent and background processes and infrastructure have already pre-loaded the answer in our questioning--we'll formulate virtual entities and relations in our PSM--its like a Virtualbox virtual machine trying to understand the hardware through the distortions of its hypervisor

 

[Randall]

The Ego Tunnel ( PSM Explained ): Thomas Metzinger. The Ego Tunnel: the science of the mind and the myth of the self
A link to Heidegger and Dasein: Martin Heidegger (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
A link to Foundationalsism: Foundationalism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Hypervisor: Hypervisor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blatner seems to indicate that Heidegger was unclear on whether a world depended on dasein or vice versa ... its like a Virtualbox virtual machine trying to understand the hardware through the distortions of its hypervisor

While we try to wrap our tiny heads around your last post, I'd just like to say welcome back ( again ) .

 

[smcder]

@Michael Allen

"This excerpt is definitely worth reading (I think Hubert Dreyfus indicated in one of his lectures that Blatner probably understood Heidegger better than Heidegger)"

Dreyfus said something like that ... maybe the first lecture of Phil 185 when he discusses translations.

The series can be found here:

Philosophy 185 Heidegger : Hubert Dreyfus : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

as well as the Berkley website, Open Culture and ITunes

 

[smcder]

Pre-reflective consciousness
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...Beq93_QjwNAgy9Fbg&sig2=fNGHC4ibQivG3ShhkAdzYQ
p.98 (my paraphrase)

There is a clear contrast between the HOR view and the phenomenological view.

• phenomenologists are not trying to give an account of what makes a mental state conscious; they are describing a conscious mental state as it is experienced.
• pre-reflective self-consciousness is to be understood as an intrinsic feature of primary, first-order experience.
  • phenomenologists thus explicitly deny that the primary kind of self-consciousness that belongs to the structure of any consciousness is to be understood in terms of some kind of second mental states – an introspection, or higher-order monitoring – that takes the first as an object.
• It has also been suggested that on one reading the higher-order account of consciousness generates an infinite regress (Gallagher and Zahavi 2007)

infinite regress

• if a mental state is conscious only because it is taken as an object by a contemporary second-order mental state, then the second-order mental state is either conscious or non-conscious.
• if conscious, it must also be taken as an object by a contemporary third-order mental state (by definition) and so forth ad infinitum.
• If the second-order mental state is non-conscious (the standard reply to halt the regress) then
  • one has to explain what a nonconscious mental state is and why precisely such a state has the capacity of making another state conscious. Putting one non-conscious mental state into relation with another non-conscious mental state suddenly transforms one of the mental states into a conscious mental state. Why?
  • further, it is not clear how the now conscious mental state takes on the various aspects of phenomenality (the ‘what it is like” of experience), perspective, and ownership (the sense that it is my experience) that seem to characterize first-order perceptual experience.

 

[Randall]

... It has also been suggested that on one reading the higher-order account of consciousness generates an infinite regress ...

Having run across this issue ( infinite regress ) or as I prefer to call it recursion, in my own meditations, my present view is best framed in the form of the question: "Am I conscious of my consciousness?". When answering that, what seems to be taking place is that we create a sort of mental snapshot of the moment, store it to memory, and then analyze it after the fact, which in short order tends to result in an affirmative answer to the question. However possessing a memory of a conscious state ( no matter how recent that memory is ) is not the same as the real time experience, so we don't really have true recursion. No second or third or fourth order consciousness is being created, only reflections of past states in our dynamic memory system.

 

[Constance]

It seems to me that the points made above in Steve's extract from Gallagher address Michael's view of consciousness as intractable or self-defeating or perhaps pointless.

I think it is the layered nature of consciousness -- from prereflective experience to reflective consciousness to mind and 'higher order thought' -- that most resists our attempts to comprehend its structure {and/or accept its structure}. If we reach an impasse in our thinking such as that which Michael or HOT/HOR theorists describe, we nevertheless automatically return to the continuous, open=ended, presence to the world that consciousness provides. We keep on experiencing our existence in the world and we continue to reflect on it. We never "pass GO and go directly to jail," to take a metaphor from a board game whose name escapes me at the moment. We can't think our way out of consciousness. Everything returns to the present moment in which we still find ourselves existing in a world that draws us out of ourselves and simultaneously magnifies our experience in it.

 

[smcder]

Having run across this issue ( infinite regress ) or as I prefer to call it recursion, in my own meditations, my present view is best framed in the form of the question: "Am I conscious of my consciousness?". When answering that, what seems to be taking place is that we create a sort of mental snapshot of the moment, store it to memory, and then analyze it after the fact, which in short order tends to result in an affirmative answer to the question. However possessing a memory of a conscious state ( no matter how recent that memory is ) is not the same as the real time experience, so we don't really have true recursion. No second or third or fourth order consciousness is being created, only reflections of past states in our dynamic memory system.

I think we have to be cautious with introspection - this was Ramachandran's concern. Is brain scanning able to tell us anything about this process? - in order to cross check how it seems to be in introspection? Does your introspection agree with others? We could make a check of the literature. A protocol would have to be established to make sure the same introspection is being made by each person.

the argument above refers to contemporary second-order mental states (by definition) so the argument seems to proceed logically from that assumption:

• if a mental state is conscious only because it is taken as an object by a contemporary second-order mental state, then the second-order mental state is either conscious or non-conscious.

• if conscious, it must also be taken as an object by a contemporary third-order mental state (by definition) and so forth ad infinitum.

• If the second-order mental state is non-conscious (the standard reply to halt the regress) then
  • one has to explain what a nonconscious mental state is and why precisely such a state has the capacity of making another state conscious. Putting one non-conscious mental state into relation with another non-conscious mental state suddenly transforms one of the mental states into a conscious mental state. Why?
  • further, it is not clear how the now conscious mental state takes on the various aspects of phenomenality (the ‘what it is like” of experience), perspective, and ownership (the sense that it is my experience) that seem to characterize first-order perceptual experience

 

[smcder]

It seems to me that the points made above in Steve's extract from Gallagher address Michael's view of consciousness as intractable or self-defeating or perhaps pointless.

I think it is the layered nature of consciousness -- from prereflective experience to reflective consciousness to mind and 'higher order thought' -- that most resists our attempts to comprehend its structure {and/or accept its structure}. If we reach an impasse in our thinking such as that which Michael or HOT/HOR theorists describe, we nevertheless automatically return to the continuous, open=ended, presence to the world that consciousness provides. We keep on experiencing our existence in the world and we continue to reflect on it. We never "pass GO and go directly to jail," to take a metaphor from a board game whose name escapes me at the moment. We can't think our way out of consciousness. Everything returns to the present moment in which we still find ourselves existing in a world that draws us out of ourselves and simultaneously magnifies our experience in it.

Monopoly

 

[smcder]

Having run across this issue ( infinite regress ) or as I prefer to call it recursion, in my own meditations, my present view is best framed in the form of the question: "Am I conscious of my consciousness?". When answering that, what seems to be taking place is that we create a sort of mental snapshot of the moment, store it to memory, and then analyze it after the fact, which in short order tends to result in an affirmative answer to the question. However possessing a memory of a conscious state ( no matter how recent that memory is ) is not the same as the real time experience, so we don't really have true recursion. No second or third or fourth order consciousness is being created, only reflections of past states in our dynamic memory system.

can you provide a "script" or outline of the introspection, a step by step that I could try and see if I come to the same conclusion? do you somehow see or feel the mental snapshot being taken? right now when I try to just think:

am i conscious of my consciousness?

and type out what comes up:

I find all sorts of uncertainties about this ... do I mean "awareness" when I say consciousness? what does it mean to be aware of my consciousness? sometimes I see various layers of watching myself at the same time - and then i flip back to is that possible or just an image based on my own preconceptions?

and then i introspect on memory ... i wonder if it's just my assumption that a snapshot is made of real time experience and if so, how do i ever get ahold of real time experience and i compare that to mindfulness meditation (or memory thereof) that ive done in the past ...

and my concern is if I come up with a step by step process am i directing that instead of watching what goes on? in other words do I seem to feel this is whats going on because I think it should be that way because Ive read about it?

- that's an example of a script or a really rough version ... do you have something like that i could look at? or do you use a formal process of introspection that you could link to?

Google search:

brain scans and introspection

and

introspection protocol brain science

produced some interesting titles